My parents were refugees from Hitler. They were well educated, English speaking and able to rapidly assimilate into American life in the late 1930s. Despite their best efforts; government bureaucracy, anti-Semitism and the speed with which Hitler seized most of Central and Western Europe thwarted their efforts to save their families from Nazi concentration camps.
Securing the border along with resolving the legal status of Dreamers who have been living in the shadows of America for many years would build public confidence in the government's ability to manage our immigration system. Public confidence is the necessary pre-requisite to a comprehensive 21st century immigration reform plan.
The Trump Administration created a "Dreamer crisis" and then gave Congress six months to "fix" the problem. That's not constructive. The Trump Administration must work with Congress to fashion a legislative process which builds the trust of the American people and sets the stage for future legislation to modernize our antiquated immigration system.
The debate was focused on whether or not to protect undocumented aliens in the United States because they do "jobs Americans won't do" – for example agriculture, food processing, and unskilled construction. But no attention has been paid to protecting jobs Americans are doing from documented alien labor. Despite the loss of +/- 200,000 US technology jobs, the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) proceeded to awarded 85,000 "temporary high skilled knowledge worker visas (H1-B) last year
It is farcical to believe that it is possible to secure any of the nation's borders as long as the rewards of illegal entry – the "anchor baby" at the end of the rainbow -- outweigh the risks posed by the US Border Patrol, TSA, or Customs and Enforcement.